Big Industrial celebrates renovation

This photograph shot Thursday shows about half of the space in the renovated building at the Kingman Airport & Industrial Park now owned by Big Industrial. On the left is Robert Davis, plant manager at Karnak, which shares a fence with the property. In the middle is Jackie Chapman and on the right is Brad Noonan, both from Manpower.

KINGMAN – Smiles and handshakes were abundant among the 35 people in attendance Thursday around noon as Big Industrial staged a ribbon cutting event to celebrate its purchase and renovation of the old Southwire facility at the Kingman Airport & Industrial Park.

“It’s a very positive step. We’ve got a major facility that was in need of renovation. We had somebody that invested in the building, did the renovation and now we have a product from our end,” said Bob Riley, director of economic development for the Kingman Airport & Industrial Park.

“If this building fills, and we expect that it will, we’ll only have a 3 percent vacancy rate in the park,” said Riley. The Kingman Airport & Industrial Park manages 4.5 million square feet of developed space, said Riley.

The building, which is a rectangular shape and quite long, could easily house three football fields from one end to the other in its 260,415 square feet, which sits on a 54-acre site. It is located at 4900 N. Industrial Blvd.

The new acquisition will bring Big Industrial up to 750,000 square feet of industrial space in Kingman. The company also owns the Cascade Tissue/Southern Finishing building and the Scott Industrial building.

When asked what the plan was for the building, Mendon said, “We’re more interested in leasing than we are in selling. We’re generally not interested in just flipping a building. We don’t do that.

“We’ve owned the Cascades, the former Tucker Housewares building, for 15 years, so our preference will be to lease the building to a single tenant. But we’re not opposed to dividing it either,” said Mendon.

Location is a “primary” advantage to buying a building in Kingman, along with its proximity to Interstate 40 as well as California and its 40 million people, said Mendon. And the railroad is huge, he said.

“Manufacturers seem to like the location. Kingman has a really strong manufacturing base. We’ve been a part of that with the other two buildings that we own,” said Mendon.

He said the early activity regarding potential tenants involves manufacturing.

“We’ve got probably five or six, right now, strong prospects, that have been to Kingman and visited the building already or are interested in coming,” said Mendon.

The seven-figure renovation had some deadlines on it because Big Industrial did a 1031 exchange, where they sold another property for the property in Kingman in order to avoid paying taxes after a sale, said Mendon.

When asked what the price was for the old Southwire building, Mendon said, “We don’t disclose that.”

“We’ve had a pretty good run of success here in Kingman, and hopefully that continues. We feel strongly about the area and the economic development folks that are here that we’ve dealt with for many years: Bob Riley, Dave French and their board,” said Mendon. “We’re just thrilled to identify another opportunity.”

Big Industrial, with headquarters in Kansas, owns around six million square feet of property in eight states while serving large companies such as Home Depot to small, local businesses.

“Big Industrial finds buildings, renovates them, then leases them long term,” said Riley. “They’re heavily invested in Kingman. This is their third building they have. We’re pleased that they are one of our tenants.”